www.eslkidstuff.

com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

Warm Up, Review & Maintenance

You will need:
CD / Tape player
cushions (if you have enough floor space)
name tags for each student
glove puppet (for kids under 7)
ball (for kids over 7)
resources for whatever you are going to review from previous lessons.
Readers:
Classroom reader from a previous week
Songs:
The Hello Song
Review song from a previous week
Readers and songs can be downloaded at http://www.eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-lessonplans.html
Resources:

Suggestions for the start of your lessons:

The beginning of your lesson is extremely important: you set the tone of your lesson and get
everyone in the right frame of mind for learning English. It is also an opportunity to check
homework and review previous lessons.
These activities can be done in the following order at the start of your lesson:
1. Welcoming
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and
gesture for them to sit down. If you have space on the floor, It's
a good idea to have a cushion for each student as this makes
sitting arrangements easy to organize. Try and arrange the
cushions beforehand spaced out in a fan-shape around you.
2. Name Tags
Before class prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) with
each student's name written in lower case letters. Sit down with
your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up
each tag and call out the name. Try and encourage each student to
put their hand up and say "yes". Hand over the tags and help to pin
/ stick on. Later on as your students recognize their written names
you can have each student in turn pick out their own name tag.

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 1 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved

www.eslkidstuff.com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

3. Greetings
For younger students (7s and under):
Use a glove puppet (such as a Sesame Street puppet) to greet the
students. Keep him in a cloth bag. Bring out the bag, open it
enough to see in and shout into the bag the puppet's name (e.g.
"Cookie Monster!"). Then move your ear to the opening to listen
- nothing. Go to each student and encourage them to shout the
puppet's name into the bag - each time nothing happens. Finally,
get all the students together to shout the name at the same
time. This time the puppet wakes up and jumps out of the bag! The puppet then chats to
each student: "Hello", "What's your name?" "Goodbye / See you" before going back into the
bag and back to sleep.

For older students (8 and older):

Sit everyone in a circle around you and throw (or roll) a ball to
each student randomly. As you do so, ask questions, starting
from the simple (What's your name?, How are you?) to more
involved questions (Where do you live?, What is your favorite
food, Do you like Superman?, Can you fly?, etc.). You can
review questions from previous lessons and introduce new
questions. Generally, I try to introduce one or two new
questions a month - the first time they are introduced ask
everybody the question, then always review in the next
lessons.

4. Sing "Hello Song" or a Review Song

Sit in a circle and sing along to the song. Encourage students to
clap along or pat their laps in time with the music. The Hello
Song is a good song to start the lesson with, especially as it has
an accompanying Goodbye song to sing at the end of the lesson.

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 2 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved

www.eslkidstuff.com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

Lyrics for "The Hello Song"

Gestures for "The Hello Song"

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the
song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do
them with you.

Im fine, thank you,

Im fine, thank you,
Im fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Wave as you sing the Hello, hello parts.

Gesture to others as you sing How are you today?
Point to yourself as you sing Im fine, thank you
Hand gesture towards another student as you sing
And how about you?.

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Im fine, thank you,
And how about you?

5. Read a Classroom Reader again

As you progress through the lessons you will start to build up a
catalog of classroom readers (see our Reader download page at
http://www.eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-readers.html). Kids love
going back to old stories and reading through them again. Invite a
student to pick a classroom reader and read through it as a class.
Make the story as interactive as possible by asking questions (e.g.
what colors there are, the names of different objects, etc.) and
getting students to speculate what is going to happen next in the
story.
6. Homework check
Check each student's homework set in the last lesson. Ask each
student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g.
"what color is it?"), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of
mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a
smiley face). Finally, tell your students to put their homework
back into their bags.
7. Do "Exercise Routine" activity
Say the following and have your students follow your lead:
"Stand up (T stands and so does everyone else), "Hands up /
hands down" (x 3-5), "Jump" (x3-5), "Run! / Stop!" (x3-5), "Turn
around! / Stop!" (x3-5), finally "Sit down". Throughout the
course you can introduce other commands, such as "Hop", "Star

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 3 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved

www.eslkidstuff.com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

Jump", "Wiggle", "Crouch" and so on.

Extra activity: Once your Ss have got to know these exercises you can play "Teacher Says"
using these actions.
How to play ... Teacher Says
This is basically Simon Says but using the words "Teacher says" instead. The teacher tells the Ss to
do an action and the Ss do ask asked (e.g. "Teacher says ... jump 3 times"). T keeps on giving
instructions with different actions using "Teacher says ...". At some point T gives a command
without using the phrase "Teacher says" (e.g. "Hop 5 times") and the Ss mustn't do that action - they
have to stay still. Any Ss that do the action have to sit out for the rest of the game. The last S
standing is the winner.

8. Review past lessons

Reviewing past lessons is very important - students need constant practice of new vocab,
structures, songs, games and so on. Always review parts of your last lesson as well as some
parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing - it's fine to
recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar
games (although be careful not to play a game to death!).
Note: You can also include review activities in the main body of your lesson. Kids can have
short attention spans so it's good to be able to pull out lots of activities during different
stages of the lesson.

Other ideas to include in your Warm Up:

What's in the bag?

This is a great activity to do at the beginning of your
lessons. Fill a large cloth bag with items from your
previous lessons (e.g. plastic fruit, animals, etc.). You can
also throw in a few other objects (e.g. an eraser, a plastic
bottle, a plastic cup - anything lying around (and
safe!)). Show the bag to your students and shake it to
rattle the objects inside. Pull out different objects,
teach/elicit their names, have students hold and pass the

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 4 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved

www.eslkidstuff.com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

objects around. You can even have students pull objects out of the bag. Pull out 1 or
2 objects per student. Finally, place the objects around the classroom and have each
student retrieve each object as you call out its name and put it back in the bag.

Knock-Knock
This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the students to knock on the
door before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step:
1. When the student knocks, teacher says "Who's there?". The student replies "It's
(Koji)" and then the teacher says "Come in (Koji)".
2. When the student knocks the teacher must guess who it is "Is that (Koji)?". The
student replies yes or no - if no, the teacher continues guessing. Having your
students develop their own knocking styles makes this even more fun.

Spin the bottle

Sit students in a circle with a bottle in the middle.
Teacher Spins the bottle. When it stops spinning the
student it is pointing to has to answer a question. If
the answer is correct then that student can spin the
bottle. This is a good class warm up activity (e.g.
How are you? What's your name? What is this?
(show an object or flashcard) Do you like ___?, etc.).

Talk about the weather (do after you have taught the weather lesson plan).
1. Prepare a weather board. Before the first class prepare a piece of cardboard
and cover it with felt you are going to pin this to the wall. If you can, try and
get blue felt (to represent the sky). Write at the top in large letters, "Hows the
weather today?". Below the write "Today it's". Cut out weather pictures (such
as our weather flashcards) and stick some velcro on the back. Arrange the
weather pictures around the edge of the board and then put the board on the
wall of your classroom. You can now use this weather board at the beginning of
every lesson.
2. Sing the Weather Song. Sing the song together doing all of the gestures.
3. Look outside. Get everyone to look outside by saying "Hows the weather? Look
outside". Elicit the weather for that day.
4. Put the weather pictures on the Weather Board. Invite some students to come
up and put the weather pictures on the board. Make sure these students say the
word as they put the card on the board.

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 5 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved

www.eslkidstuff.com | Lesson Plans for ESL Kids Teachers

Review the day, date and month (do after you have taught the days and months
lesson plan).
You'll need a large calendar for this (ideally with the days and months written in
English). Before class, set the calendar to the front page. Site everyone down facing
you and turn the page of the calendar to January. Ask "Which month is this?" and
have everyone shout out "January!". Then ask, "It it January now"? Elicit "Yes" or
"No" depending on the month you are in. Keep turning the pages and eliciting
months until you reach your current month.
Then ask "What day is it today?" pointing to the days at the top of the page. Get
everyone to shout out the day.
Next, point down the column of dates and ask "What is the date today?" and elicit
the correct date.
Finally, invite a student to come up to the calendar and stick a star or sticker onto
the correct date.
Additionally, you can sing the "Days of the Week" song or "Months March" song.

All flashcards, worksheets, craft sheets, readers and songs used in this lesson plan can be
downloaded at eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-lesson-plans.html
More free Lesson Plans are available at eslkidstuff.com/esl-kids-lesson-plans.html

Can you suggest any additions to this lesson plan? If you know of any great games, activities,
teaching points, links to other sites or any other ideas that can be added to this lesson plan, please
email us: http://www.eslkidstuff.com/contact.htm
Please report any mistakes at http://www.eslkidstuff.com/contact.htm
This lesson plan was produced by ESL KidStuff (http://www.eslkidstuff.com) and is covered by
copyright.

ESL KidStuff Lesson Plan:

Warm Up, Review &
Maintenance

Page 6 of 6

Copyright ESL KidStuff

All rights reserved